Iran Special

5/5/18 Digest note: due to tech inability to access or use burbankdigest.com, some IRAN-related material is randomly collected below. If you’re able to access the digest, use the search engine to connect you to much more critical information that can be copy/pasted and spread as far and wide as possible. Nothing is more important to US than the psyop its global destruction and domination ‘order’ depends upon...which is why its repression, especially its state-sponsored fascist fake news control -- with AI and is in high gear.

“ ...to neutralize, counterbalance and shape the destabilizing impact Iran has across the region...”.
U.S. Central Command undertaking realignment to meet future concerns
2/27/18 http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/NEWS-ARTICLES/News-Article-View/Article/145...
USCENTCOM commander, Army Gen. Joseph L. Votel speaking to the House Armed Services Committee emphasized that the recently published National Defense Strategy “rightly identifies” resurgence of great power competition as the United States’ principal national security challenge. Based on military progress in the campaign to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is undertaking operational alignment and rebalancing so USCENTCOM military efforts are aligned with its broader interagency and international efforts to neutralize, counterbalance and shape the destabilizing impact Iran has across the region...to confront the scourge of terrorism, Iran's malign activities across the region pose the long-term threat to stability in this part of the world” ....and further Votel pointed out “both Russia and China are cultivating multidimensional ties to Iran...Lifting U.N. sanctions under the joint comprehensive plan of action (JOCA nuclear deal) opens path for Iran to resume application to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.”

Trump: ISIS’ end ‘is in sight’ ... “We will soon transition into a new phase...”

After a four-month battle, US-backed militias on Friday declared the “total liberation” of Raqqa. “We will soon transition into a new phase in which we will support local security forces, de-escalate violence across Syria, and advance the conditions for lasting peace, so that the terrorists cannot return to threaten our collective security again. We will support diplomatic negotiations that end the violence, allow refugees to return safely home, and yield a political transition that honors the will of the Syrian people. ISIS leaders, and anyone who supports them, must and will face justice,” Trump said.

“...Potentially the most dangerous scenario would be an 'anti-hegemonic' coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances...a grand coalition of China,Russia, perhaps Iran...reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc,though this time, China would likely be the leader and Russia the follower.Averting this contingency...will require US geostrategic skill on the western,eastern, and southern perimeters of Eurasia simultaneously.’
The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives, 1997, by Zbigniew K. Brzezinski

Guardian lapdog silent on July 4 US-ISIS IRAN attack like NYT, WaPo
‘The war after ISIS’: has Trump opened the door to conflict with Iran?
6/18/17 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/18/donald-trump-syria-iran-...
www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/06/07/statement-president-terrorist-attacks-iran> . ...Trump has portrayed Iranian influence as a global threat on a par with Isis and al-Qaida. When Tehran suffered a terrorism attack on 7 June, he said in a White House statement “We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote”...secretary of state Rex Tillerson told the Senate last week the US would “work toward support of those elements inside Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition”....
to Iranian ears that sounded like...Bush era regime change..or..the1953 CIA-engineered coup ...Jennifer Cafarella, expert on the conflict at the Institute for the Study of War , said: “The larger picture here is the war after ISIS to dominate the security sphere... Iran is already preparing for that next phase and begun taking steps to win that next phase. The US is still fixated on ISIS ...”
A US decision to open a new counter-ISIS front outpost in the south-east Syrian desert at al-Tanf, is a challenge to Iranian aspirations for an east-west corridor from Tehran to Damascus to Lebanon that would run through al-Tanf.
“It looks as if the Iranians, Assad, and Iranian-mobilised Iraqi militias have made a determination not to allow the US to gain more territory in the Syrian desert,” said Nicholas Heras, a regional expert at the Centre for a New American Security.
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unifying US strategic communications to escalate war on Iran
Did Trump Beat ISIS?
10/19/17 Jonathan S. Tobin http://www.nationalreview.com/article/452868/trump-isis-victory
...Trump must also understand the ISIS fight shouldn’t distract the U.S. from Iran, which remains the main threat to Western interests in the region.

ISIS Hits Iran Terror Comes to the Islamic Republic
7/4/17 https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2017-07-04/isis-hits-iran?c...
After three years of trying to strike Iran, the Islamic State (ISIS) finally succeeded in June . The group attacked two highly symbolic and secure targets near Tehran: the Iranian parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/06/09/isis-attacks-iran-and-a...
.....the arrival of ISIS violence inside Iran is deeply unsettling for a regime that has trumpeted its internal stability as evidence of its wise governance and as an implicit admonition against a revival of opposition activism. With their near simultaneous timing and access to two obvious targets, the attacks exposed glaring vulnerabilities in Iran’s internal security. That the five attackers were Iranian citizens, recruited by ISIS, only sharpens the blow and heightens the sense of foreboding.
For Iran’s leadership, the attacks against such conspicuous symbols of the post-revolutionary order will reinforce the perception that the primary purpose of the attacks was not merely to sow insecurity and terrorize civilians, but rather to undermine and even overthrow the regime....

Iran Revolutionary Guards blame US, Saudis for deadly ISIS-claimed attack in Tehran
5/7/17Agence France-Presse
In a statement the Guards said.."This terrorist action... after the meeting of the president of the United States with the leader of the one of the region's reactionary governments (Saudi Arabia)... shows they are involved," referring to US President Donald Trump's recent visit to Riyadh.

War with Iran is probably our best option
3/13/15 Joshua Muravchik http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/war-with-iran-is-probably-our-bes...
Joshua Muravchik is a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
...Does this mean our only option is war? Yes, although an air campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would entail less need for boots on the ground than the war Obama is waging against the Islamic State, which poses far smaller a threat than Iran does..Yes, there are risks to military action. But Iran’s nuclear program and vaunting ambitions have made the world a more dangerous place. Its achievement of a bomb would magnify that danger many fold. Alas, sanctions and deals will not prevent this....

Digest note: US/ISIS restructure v. major target IRAN .
Bigger battles rising from the ashes of the war on ISIS
10/21/17 CNN Tim Lister
...At its zenith in 2015, ISIS was the common enemy. Two years later the face of terror and the places it inhabits have changed. But across the Middle East, and among the great powers, there's little sign of the political will to turn swords into plowshares....As ISIS retreats, al Qaeda resurfaces..Alliances shift as countries jockey for position.
Iran's regional rival, Saudi Arabia, has gone on a weapons-buying spree.. though it already has US Patriot missiles and will soon have THAAD anti-missile interceptors. Saudi sources said the government has assured Israel that the S-400 will point towards Tehran, not Jerusalem.

Made-in-USA terror proxies foil its plans
Iran reaps spoils of the war on ISIS
Bigger battles rising from the ashes of the war on ISIS
10/21/17 CNN Tim Lister
Sunni militants have long seen the western democracies -- and, by extension, the Gulf monarchies -- as their adversaries. But they have a new enemy: the Shia coalition powered by Iran, which has recruited militias from Lebanon, Iraq, even Afghanistan to fight in Syria. They are fighting what has become a civil war among Muslims.
These contests for recruits and resources play out against the background of a region in turmoil, where alliances are shifting amid overlapping disputes.
Hardliners in Iran are emboldened by US President Donald Trump's decision not to recertify the 2015 nuclear agreement. Saudi officials say they expect a new campaign of sabotage by Tehran, in the Kingdom's predominantly Shia eastern province and in cyberspace.
Alliances shift as countries jockey for position
Wherever one looks, from the Gulf to the Mediterranean, governments and the multitude of groups they support or oppose are jockeying for advantage as ISIS shrinks. Force, and the threat of superior firepower, remain the currency of the day.
As ISIS retreats, al Qaeda is eyeing opportunities in Syria..a new group has emerged Brett McGurk, US envoy for the anti-ISIS coalition dubbed Idlib the largest al Qaeda haven since the days of Osama bin Laden. "As these highly experienced AQ veterans still sit in Syria, situated within masses of frustrated jihadists and a growing void of hardliner leadership, only a fool would think that AQ is sitting idly by," concludes Jihadi tracker SITE Intelligence Institute, [search burbankdigest re: SITEUS ‘terrorist’ info maker]

Trump: ISIS’ end ‘in sight’ after recapture of Raqqa

After a four-month battle, US-backed militias on Friday declared the “total liberation” of Raqqa.
The victory marked a major defeat for the terrorist group, which has seen its territory steadily shrink since last year.
ISIS took over Raqqa in January 2014 and turned it into the epicenter of its barbarous regime, which included cities and towns in Syria and Iraq.
“We will soon transition into a new phase in which we will support local security forces, de-escalate violence across Syria, and advance the conditions for lasting peace, so that the terrorists cannot return to threaten our collective security again. We will support diplomatic negotiations that end the violence, allow refugees to return safely home, and yield a political transition that honors the will of the Syrian people. ISIS leaders, and anyone who supports them, must and will face justice,” Trump said.